Imagine, if you will, an office where everything is gray; the chairs, the walls, the floor. The employees are all similarly dressed in gray tones as well. There are no expressions on their faces and their voices are monotone. It’s cold and robotic.

Now think about the last time you were on a business’s social media page or reading one of their blogs. Was it fun and personable or was it drab and gray? It is surprising how many businesses are still following this no-personality, all-business persona. Maybe it's because they are afraid they'll be perceived as unprofessional, or maybe they just don't have the right person managing their web marketing and social media accounts, either way, they are failing to engage their audience.

If you are one of these businesses, then it is definitely time to rethink your company’s image.

The Meridian-based web marketing agency, Tribute Media, has hired Sloane Bellante as its Director of Sales. In addition to conducting client consultations and representing Tribute Media at networking and community events, Bellante will be responsible for leading and growing the sales department.

Bellante has more than 15 years of sales and management experience, which includes positions with numerous businesses in the medical device industry. In October 2006, Bellante co-founded the Connecticut-based business Sleep Solutions, a company offering treatment and medical supplies to people suffering from sleep-related breathing disorders.

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Joining Forces

The Marketing Minds is a marketing company co-owned by Tribute Media's development manager, Norm Schurdell. After hiring Schurdell in August 2016, partnership talks began. With the alignment of The Marketing Minds and Tribute Media's goals, purpose and agile, consultative approach to marketing, the logical next step was to combine resources to the benefit of both businesses and their clients.

"We all thrive on great products and services in our continued pursuit to help build businesses around the world through effective & integrated marketing," Schurdell says of the partnership between the two agencies.

Creating effective messaging can be very difficult, especially in regards to messaging online. While the web is great at disseminating information to a large number of people, it isn’t always the best at maintaining the intended tone of voice. Oftentimes, brands put something out there, only to find that it has been wildly misinterpreted. This is how disasters begin. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook bring interaction between brands and their customers to a new level, and require an entirely different approach than traditional advertising and marketing tactics.

In the spirit of Halloween, we at Tribute Media want to tell you of a grisly tale that affects more websites on the Internet than you would believe. It’s known as “The Curse of Black Hat SEO” and it’s our take on some of the things you should be avoiding when performing search engine optimization to your website. SEO used to be a lot easier to do before Google’s search algorithm became as sophisticated as it is today. Couple of keywords here, a few links there, and you were sure to start ranking for some pretty competitive terms.

All that has changed in the past few years. The problem, however, is that some SEO companies and “professionals” will still practice these tactics in order to see quick results. You know the type: the ones that can “guarantee” you top rankings on Google in 3 months. While these black hat tactics may still work to some degree, the risk of being penalized or de-indexed is a far greater threat to your business than taking a little extra time to rank on Google.

Back in the dawn of the Internet, people viewed purchasing products online with a certain wariness. Images of scammers and other shady individuals looking to rip you off and steal your credit card information loomed large in users' minds.

Today, this is much less the case. While identity and information theft are still significant concerns, making online purchases has become a widely accepted practice for a majority of consumers. In this blog, we'll take a look at the steps by which Ecommerce entered the mainstream.

When your website goes live, it's a terrific moment. You've planted your flag in the online world and opened the doors to a larger and more diverse crowd of potential clients. However, your work has just begun at this point.

In a way, the website for your business is the same as a physical storefront: To keep it enticing to customers, you need to maintain and improve it as much as you can. This means checking your analytics to get an idea of where traffic to your site comes from. It also means adding new content regularly to catch the attention of search engines.

First impressions matter. When people come to your Facebook business page, the first thing they'll see is your cover photo. Since it'll create that crucial first impression in the minds of potential customers, your photo needs to look its best.

Just the Right Size

"How do you do that?" you may ask. First, make sure it has the proper dimensions. Facebook cover photos should be 851 wide by 315 tall. You should also leave open space where your profile image overlays your cover photo.

Let's be honest, plagiarism, that ugly "P" word, is still an issue today; and not just for students who don't understand that their teacher can check for such things through magical devices called computers, but also for the working adult who is supposed to be the example.

Plagiarism is the internet presence equivalent of somebody passing gas in a small room full of people; most of the time, eye contact is absent, and everyone wants to avoid the subject at all costs.

Blogging has a critical role in digital marketing. First and foremost being; attract new users and increase traffic to your website engaging and interesting content. This means creating new and consistent content around trending topics and relevant information.

Even though there have been countless studies and online statistics praising this technique; why are so many large companies hesitant to insert this into the digital marketing strategy? Could it be because they don’t believe blogging is important or maybe they are too lazy to keep their blog updated?

We Build Businesses.

In 2018, there's no doubt you have many choices when it comes to web design and web marketing services. Your middle schooler probably knows his way around CSS and HTML and every college kid is a blogger. The problem is, a site that looks hot but doesn't have well-thought out strategy, is like a certain reality show family we can't name for legal reasons: pretty, but worthless.

The difference between a web site and a web strategy is something that the experts at Tribute Media have mastered. Put us to work and we'll create a web strategy that will help you generate leads and grow your business.

Ready to get started? Just fill out the form and we'll get back to you pretty quickly. Or, just browse around a bit. We'll only move as fast as you want us to move.